1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a computer aided system and method for supporting a variety of work such as construction work and maintenance work of factory facilities and architectures. More particularly, the present invention relates to a computer aided work support system and method capable of correctly measuring the position and orientation of an object to be designed or maintained and improving the efficiency of work such as design and maintenance.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the construction and maintenance of a large structure such as a nuclear power plant and a factory facility, objects of an the structure each have a large error in actual installation positions. Therefore, measurement, re-design, and modification of each object of the structure have been repetitively performed until the errors in actual installation positions become within an allowable range. For the measurement of the position and orientation of each object of an the structure point measurement such as triangulation has been used, requiring a long time and much labor.
In a conventional technique as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,122,971, the image of an object of a structure is photographed at the construction site and matched with an estimated image of the object while both are displayed on the screen of a display unit, to measure the actual position and orientation of the object.
This technique of U.S. Pat. No. 5,122,971 discloses nothing about image pickup parameters used for displaying the image of an object of the structure on the display screen. The measurement precision necessary for design work cannot be attained from this technique, hindering the design work and making it impossible to rationalize the design work.